Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada aims to receive near the upper target of its annual immigration levels for economic class immigrants.

The government now has a much clearer picture of how ITAs relate to submitted applications. It has two years of data showing how many candidates received ITAs but failed to submit their applications. The relationship between ITAs, completed applications and immigrants arriving in Canada is a key driver when setting ITA numbers.

The time it takes to complete an application from the date of an ITA, with the target being six months. As such, IRCC is aware it must issue a certain number of ITAs during specified quarters so that those invited arrive in the calendar year. This was also part of the reason behind the increase in ITAs at the end of 2016. These candidates would be counted against the 2017 immigration target.

The backlog of applications that formed under the previous system before Express Entry began are now almost all cleared. This means that sometime soon every new federal economic class permanent resident must all come through Express Entry.